Summer time

Hi there! So it's officially summer...

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a summer hater.  I enjoy the beach (duh), I like the warmer weather (NOT the humidity), I like the party atmosphere that accompanies it and of course, I have a summer girl for a daughter, so I have to embrace it (let's not discuss the fact that her 3rd birthday is less than a month away, I may cry).

So this year, no bucket list, but we have quite a bit on our plate.  There's the beach, community fairs, swim lessons, birthday parties for Mags...one of them AT the beach, a mini-vacay also at the beach and then Disney.

The trend there, if you didn't catch it, is...THE BEACH!  And this time last year I would have slightly cringed at all the beach time.  Not for me, but for the Magster.  This time last year, she was a staunch beach HATER.  She did not enjoy the sand and would not go anywhere near the ocean.  I have to say it broke my heart a little because I have always loved the beach and wanted to be able to share that with my children.  But I understood that some children are just sensitive to some things and basically, your child is an individual and may not like the same things you....shocking, I know.

Two weekends ago, we headed down to the beach at my mom's in OCMD.  Mags talked about walking on the sand and swimming, but I wasn't convinced that she really had any idea what she was talking about.  And then this happened....

 

Oh and then she did this.....

 

THAT my friends is official beach babe status.  We'll see if it was a one time deal as we head down to the beach this weekend.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my beach baby is here to stay!!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Oh and another thing.....

WE'RE HEADING BACK TO DISNEY IN 55 DAYS!!!!

Trust me, I am as shocked as you. Right after we got back last year, I have to admit we almost immediately started talking about when/if we would be able to go back.  We weren't sure what would happen, but after the New Year, Brian's grandmother started talking about going back in 2014.  We started looking at schedules and trying to decide which would be the best for us crowd wise and Vacation Club points-wise.  We considered January (but Brian couldn't take anymore time off), March (but the points were really high then) and finally decided that August would be our best bet again.  So it was in motion that we would heading down NEXT August.

 

Well then some family things transpired, that aren't really worth mentioning, Brian's grandmother (MomMom) got a bee in her bonnet, and a couple of Fridays ago I got a call from her at 10 am. 
"I just booked Disney for us this August." 
"Oh that's great, when are you guys going? (thinking she's referring to her and Pop)" 
"When does Brian have off between camp and school?" 
"UUUUUHHHHHHH, let me check".  I check his calendar and they work with the dates she's booked.

So it's official.  We're heading down in mid-August, staying at the Saratoga Springs Resort, and we're going to the parks for 5 days (one more day than last year).  It was all very sudden, but we couldn't be happier!  I feel so lucky and blessed! 

The countdown I started on my phone

Have a great weekend everyone!!
    

June Reading Challenge

Hello all!  Stopping in with some book news.  I've decided to attempt a reading challenge for the next thirty days.  The YouTube 30 day Reading challenge started yesterday, and the parameters are to read a BOOK a day.  Yea, that's not happening here.
Instead, I am going to challenge myself to read 100 pages a day/3,000 pages in 30 days.  I wouldn't say that I have an average page read count per day, normally.  Some days I read whole books, and other days I don't read at all.  But I almost always watch tv everyday (brain rot, I know). So the plan is to encourage me to replace some tube time with reading.

And here are the books I plan to accomplish this challenge with....

Vampire Academy   Richelle Mead (352 pages...300 pages to read)

I started this over the weekend, but I plan on finishing this up with this challenge.  And I'm not sure what page I am on, I can't figure it out on my Nook, but I think I have about 300 pages left....

Me Before You Jojo Moyes (339 pages)

Cinder  Marissa Meyers (280 pages)

Eleanor & Park   Rainbow Rowell (252 pages)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane  Neil Gaiman (143 pages)

The Selection   Kiera Cass (225 pages)

The 5th Wave  Rick Yancey (454 pages)

Catherine   April Lindner (320 pages)

Clockwork Angel  Cassandra Clare (512 pages)

The Edge of Never  J.A. Redmerski (353 pages)

So that's the plan.  It's a little over 3,000 pages, but I think I can do it....we shall see.
Anyone else want to join?  I think this will be fun!

 

Hi

Well hello there, loooooonnnnng time no talk.
So why the long absence?  Just the same old schtuff that I've been complaining about for about a year now.  Still can't find a job, feel like that's holding me back and not letting me reach my full life potential...blah, blah, blah.  Throw in a semi-resistant to potty training toddler, and you have one Mama that didn't feel like taking the time to blog.

So what brought me back?  I honestly thought that I was out of the blogging game for good, until I discovered the world of BookTube.  For those not in the know (like me about a month ago), BookTube is the universe's answer to a global sort of book club.  It's a bunch of bibliophiles who decided to share their love of books on the interwebs.  And for some reason, stumbling upon these YouTube posts rekindled my love of reading, (which was always there but hidden under a thick layer of depression and exhaustion) which has in turn sort of buoyed me a bit.  And in turn, I've decided to start blogging again.

The blog is still going to be about the fam, with a dash of book love mixed in.  Cause I don't think I have the cajones to start a BookTube (BT) channel, but I really love talking about books.  So I think I'm back and probably about once a week I'm going to pop in with what I'm reading, sharing some BT love and the like.

And if you're curious to see how rekindled my love of reading has gotten check out my Goodreads.  In January I set a goal of reading 30 books and as of today I have read 23...12 of those were just since May...

Gracias Mucho, BookTube!!   

And don't worry Maggie's doing great....






We're heading out to the beach this weekend, so I hope this finds you well and that you have a great weekend!!